recipes.health.wellness.balance.lifestyle

Ok, so right now I’m making a lot of salads. Honestly, sometimes it’s just too hot for anything else! You will probably see at least one a week for the remainder of the summer, just so I have something light and refreshing on the menu. But that doesn’t mean it’s lacking on flavor!

For this BBQ salad, I want you to start with finding your favorite BBQ sauce. Do you like sweet and tangy? Robust? Maybe a little spicy? Whatever makes you happy, go with that! For ours, we chose Kansas City style- it has a bold, smoky flavor and we happened to pick ours up at Trader Joe’s.

For more info on that BBQ sauce, check out an article they posted here.

I want you to make sure that you love your BBQ sauce because it will be the only dressing that you will use on your salad! I know that traditionally a BBQ salad is also dressed with ranch, but doing it my way dramatically reduces the overall calorie and fat content, and in my opinion, doesn’t sacrifice a thing.

We’re also going to make our own “fried” onions. The reason the word fried is in parentheses? Even though these delicious, crispy shoestring onions taste sinful, they’re actually baked in the oven! You’ll want to pay close attention to them once you put them in the oven to prevent burning. Set a timer to go off every 5 minutes and stir them up completely.

Really the only other prep for this recipe involves cutting up your jicama if you purchased the root veggie whole, like I did. You can also buy it already in matchsticks or maybe even diced. To DIY, start by peeling your jicama with a vegetable peeler or a knife, if you’re comfortable with that method. Cut your jicama root in half in order to process it on the mandolin, if using.

Use the thickest setting and create uniform slices. If you don’t have a mandolin, slice your jicama into 1/4 inch thick slices using a knife. Then, slice into matchsticks, as shown above. They don’t have to be perfect; that is up to you!